What do you do with Tiny Pears?!

Yesterday was Ox's birthday!  I'm very glad that he was born and eventually we met and fell in love.  (awww...mush)

To celebrate his birthday Ox insisted on a tradition rather than something new or fancy for dinner - a cheesesteak.  Not just any cheesesteak, but the largest cheese steak know to man.  So, I gladly complied.  It's been hot here, so picking up dinner instead of making something sounded a-okay to me.  So I ran down to T.C. Landos AKA The Cheesesteak Guys and grabbed him a large Steak Special and made my way home.

Tiny pear, over there, on the right...that's what I'm talking about!

But no birthday is complete without a special dessert and I had just the dessert in mind for this hot day.  You see this weekend while we were checking out the area we stopped by Nagog Hill Farm and they had these amazingly tiny pears.  I mean TINY.  Turns out they're Seckel Pears.  Ox loves pears, adores them even.  So, when I got home with my tiny pears, I googled "tiny pears" to see what was the best way to serve something so cute you didn't know if it was even edible.

This recipe from Kate Washington caught my eye, but I didn't want to use wine to poach my pears.  So, borrowing the simple poached pear idea I went Iron Chef on this ingredient.

I used Kate's plan and boiled water (instead of wine) with a handful of sugar, whole cloves, cinnamon and my classic homemade vanilla extract (so much better than store bought and easy peasy...see Chocolate & Zucchini's version here).  I let the water boil for about 10 minutes, to give the house a nice Fall smell.

Then in went my tiny pears.  I did peel the tiny pears first, as their skins are pretty thick for such a small fruit. A bit of a warning.  If you're a brute, such as myself, these guys are a bit tough to peel (only one knuckle was damaged for the glory of this post) - so go slowly!!!

One by one the little darlings were dropped into the spicy hot tub, then on when the lid.  I let all the flavors play together with bubbles for about 10 minutes, then I simply turned off the heat and let sit.

I had some peaches that I got as seconds from the Acton Farmer's Market this weekend.  Second's are a great way to get a quality fruit that might not be as visually attractive as it "should" be.  So, I picked out a few peaches and sliced them up and let them sit with a sprinkle of sugar while the pears soaked up the liquid love.

At the end I simply plated the two fruits with the peaches making a nest for the tiny pears to roost in all their glory.  A quick dollop of whipped cream and this dessert was light enough to follow the crazy amount of meat/break/cheese/perfection we had inhaled from the subs.

All in all I think it was a nice easy birthday meal and I think Ox was pretty content with his day of glory.